To:INESSA ARMAND

Written:Written later than December 23, 1916Published:First published in 1949 inBolshevikNo. 1.

      Sent from Zurich to Clarens (Switzerland).

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      pages264-265.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

DearFriend,

AboutRadek. You write: “I told him at Kienthal that he had behaved
badly.”

Isthat all? Only that! What about the political conclusion?? Or was
his action only an accident?? Only his personal affair?? Nothing of the
kind! There is the source of your political mistake. You do not assess what
is going on politically. Yet really this is a question of politics, however
strange it might seem at first sight.

Asregards defence of the fatherland. It would be most unpleasant for
me if we differed on this. Let us try once more to come to agreement.

Hereis some “material for reflection”:

Waris the continuation of politics.

Everythingdepends on thesystemof political relations before
the war and during the war.

Themain types of these systems are
(a) the relation of the oppressed nation to the oppressing,
(b) the relation between two oppressing nations on account of the loot, its
division, etc.,
(c) the relation of a national state which does not oppress others to one
which oppresses, to a particularly reactionary state.

Thinkover this.

Caesarismin France + tsarism in Russia againstnon-imperialistGermany in 1891—that was the historical
situation in 1891.

Thinkover that! And I was writing of 1891 in No. 1 ofSbornikas
				well.[1]

Howglad I am that you have had a talk with Guilbeaux and Levi! It
would be a good thing to do this more frequently, or at any rate from time
to time. As for the Italian, he is lying! Turati’s speech is a model ofrottenKautskianism (he has dragged “droits nationaux”
into theimperialistwar!!). And the article bybbabout this speech inVolksrechtis rotten too.

Oh,how I would like to write about this, or to have a talk with the
Italian!!

Howstupid that Levi is attacking parliamentarism!! Stupid!! And a
“Left”, too!! God, how much muddle there is in people’s heads.

Yours,Lenin

[1]See“The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up” (present
edition, Vol. 22, pp. 320–60).—Ed.